Jan. 17 (Bloomberg) -- As oil spewed from the Macondo well
in the Gulf of Mexico, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar pledged to
keep a “boot on the neck” of BP Plc to get it to plug the leak
and clean the mess. Then he halted new deepwater drilling.

Environmental advocates cheered those actions. Over the
next two years, Salazar took a more conciliatory approach with
the energy industry, lifting the ban in the Gulf a few months
later, agreeing to allow exploration in the Arctic and setting a
plan for offshore production through 2017. By the time Salazar
said yesterday that he will leave President Barack Obama’s
cabinet, environmentalists were disappointed by those actions
while the industry was heartened.

“Early on we had our differences in opinion, especially
with regards to” opening up federal land to drilling, Jack
Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, said at
the National Press Club yesterday when asked about Salazar.
“Over time we found more common ground on those issues.”

Salazar said he is leaving in March and returning to
Colorado, which he represented in the Senate. He took over the
70,000-employee department after Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Lisa
Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency, announced her resignation in December and Energy
Secretary Steven Chu also is leaving, according to two people
familiar with the matter.

Obama will begin his second term next week with Defense
Secretary Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Labor Secretary
Hilda Solis gone or preparing to depart.

Possible Successors

David Hayes, a deputy at the Interior Department, has been
mentioned in published reports as a potential Salazar successor,
as have former New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who
retired from Congress this year, former Colorado Governor Bill
Ritter and Byron Dorgan, a former Democratic senator from North
Dakota.

The oil and gas industry has lingering complaints about the
pace of U.S. approvals for drilling on federal lands or in
federal waters, and oversight regulations Salazar championed.

Salazar revamped oversight of drilling, separating safety
enforcement and leasing operations that were under the Minerals
Management Service. The agency’s Inspector General in 2010 said
the unit may have exploited ethics rules, leading to potential
conflicts. A new offshore drilling plan released last year would
allow 15 lease sales in Gulf and Arctic waters through 2017,
while keeping the Atlantic and Pacific coasts off limits.

Shell’s Woes

“Producers, drillers and operators have eagerly awaited a
full normalizing of the permitting process,” Hercules Offshore
Inc. Executive Vice President Jim Noe said in a statement.
“While we are making great strides in that direction, more
needs to be done.”

More recently, Salazar proposed tougher rules for hydraulic
fracturing for natural gas and oil on government lands that are
opposed by industry, and this month ordered a panel to review
the exploration by Royal Dutch Shell Plc in the Arctic off
Alaska’s coast, citing the company’s “mishaps” in initial
forays last year.

“We have undertaken the most aggressive oil and gas safety
and reform agenda in U.S. history,” Salazar said yesterday in a
statement on his departure plans. “Today, drilling in the Gulf
is surpassing levels seen before the spill and our nation is on
a promising path to energy independence.”

Environmentalists said Interior’s eventual embrace of an
“all of the above” energy development approach is misguided,
given the threat of climate change and the missteps by BP and
Shell.

‘Sad, Embarrassing’

“It’s sad and embarrassing that we went right back into
offshore drilling after the disaster in the Gulf” of BP’s well,
Jacqueline Savitz, deputy vice president of Oceana, a
Washington-based group that advocates on behalf of oceans, said
in an interview. “Rather than coming up with a plan to not do
it, they went right back in.”

Savitz and other environmentalists praised Salazar for his
efforts to boost renewable-energy projects. Under Salazar, the
U.S. established 10 national wildlife refuges, seven national
parks and authorized 34 alternative-energy projects on public
land.

He authorized more than 10,000 megawatts of solar, wind and
other renewable production on public lands, more than all
previous administrations’ combined. He also helped clear the
first offshore wind development, the Cape Wind Project in
Massachusetts’ Nantucket Sound, which had been stalled by
feuding and legal challenges.

“Secretary Salazar has worked to strike a balance between
responsible use and vital protection of the natural resources we
share,” Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources
Defense Council, said in a statement. “He’s laid a sound
foundation for solar power on federal lands.”